Ear protection

[Julián Fernández]

Hey guys...

What are you using to protect your ears when drums aren´t mic´ed (and inears are not an option)? (I´m talking about live gigs and rehearsals; I always use protection when practicing)
I can´t stand playing the snare in the center of the skin, but those rimshots are making my right ear ringggg!

I tried different thing but without much luck... Earplugs doesn´t cut it neither, it all sounds too weird to me when wearing them... Any suggestions?

[DSOP]

Get custom fit ear plugs, with 10 or 15 db attentuation pads (25 if you're really loud).

http://www.westone.com/custom-products/ ... 20Products

[Da Chooch]

a buddy of mind implements a system where he takes a SM57 w/ him along w/ a behringer portable mixer like a Behringer XENYX-502 5 Input 2 Bus Mixer w/EQ. then mics the wedge monitor w/ that, covers the monitor w/ a packing blanket. then sending that to his lil' mixer.

i thought of testing this out myself. but w/ the equipment that i already have which is a zoom H2 and feed that into my ol' behringer mixer. on top of that i'm planning to mix in my tama rhythm watch as well to help me start off the right tempos in the set list.

[circh bustom]

I love the sound of my drums, but I know what they sound like so I wear protection 90% of the time ranging from cheap ear plugs to headphones designed for gun practice. Think VF metrophones with Peltor and Browning stamped on them. I use those when I play with a certain hard rock cover band and use a PA sized monitor. What I like about those is once you get used to them, which doesnt take long, all well tuned kits sound the same which in my opinion levels the playing field when you have to play on a provided kit. It did take a while to get used to ear plugs, but its definitely better than the alternative of losing hearing. Pretty soon after wearing them, I had a hard time playing without them behind the fact that the highs given off by the kit were unbearable to my ears which had gotten used to the attenuation.

[Josiah]

Ear Plugs if InEars aren't around. Though mine you just swap out the element for the filter. Custom molded is so worth the money.

When I'm lazy, like rehearsals, high quality ear plugs. I have a few sets that range from 28-34db reduction.

If you are on the real cheap a set of gun muffs are like $6, not sure what their frequency chart looks like though.

[Julián Fernández]

Custom molded sound more like the real thing? Earplugs are not cutting it for me...

[Josiah]

I use and recommend Westone Products http://www.westone.com/

Earplugs are not cutting it for me...

When you say that, do you mean they don't cut the sound levels enough, it's still too loud? Or that the plugs attenuation is not to your liking?

[Julián Fernández]

They sound too muffled, nothing like the real thing...
I have all kind of earplugs and iso headphones and they all work fine when playing by myself, but I can´t use them when playing with other musicians...

[Josiah]

I would suggest looking into the higher end ear plugs, their frequency attenuation is pretty awesome. It's going to always be a little off, cause the point is reduction, but still the higher end, such as the westone musicians molded plugs are far superior then the over the counter 'christmas tree' kind.

[chris perra]

These are different.. Way more open sounding..

http://www.earfilters.net/